A landlord I know waited from March to August before he filed on a tenant who’d gone quiet. Five months of mortgage payments, gone. Georgia hands landlords one of the fastest eviction tracks in the country, and he sat on it. Landlords lose money in the gap between what the law allows and what people do.
What Is the Eviction Process in Georgia?
Seven days. That’s the whole window a tenant gets to answer once the affidavit is served. Everything downstream hangs on it.
Evictions in Georgia run through a dispossessory action. You file it in the magistrate’s court of the county where the rental sits. Plenty of landlords still call it unlawful detainer, and tenants call it getting evicted. The court calls it dispossessory. The Fulton County Magistrate Court spells out what the law requires: a real landlord-tenant setup, with the tenant holding over, sitting at will or at sufferance, failing to pay rent, or breaking the lease.
Before any filing, the landlord has to demand possession. On grounds other than nonpayment, that demand can be spoken or written under O.C.G.A. 44-7-50, and no waiting period exists between the demand and the courthouse door.
Nonpayment works differently now, and this is where landlords still get caught. The Safe at Home Act, House Bill 404, added a cure period that took effect July 1, 2024. On residential leases signed or renewed since that date, you serve a written notice to pay or vacate first. The tenant then gets three business days to pay everything owed, including rent, late fees, and utilities. Pay it all inside that window, and the nonpayment eviction stops there. Business days, not calendar days. The notice goes in a sealed envelope posted conspicuously on the door, plus whatever delivery method the lease spells out.
Once the affidavit is filed, the summons goes out for service. A sheriff, deputy, or lawful constable handles it, and since the Eviction Service Act took effect on July 1, 2025, an approved process server can too. The tenant’s clock starts on the date of actual service. File an answer inside seven days under O.C.G.A. 44-7-51, and the case gets a hearing date. Skip it, and the landlord can ask for a default judgment plus a writ.
One catch there costs landlords money. If the tenant was served by tacking the summons to the door and mailing a copy, a default gets you possession but not a money judgment. For the money, the tenant has to answer or otherwise appear.
What Georgia flatly doesn’t allow is self-help. Changing the locks, hauling belongings to the curb, cutting the power. O.C.G.A. 44-7-14.1 has banned it since 1996, and it exposes a landlord to liability no matter how far behind on the rent. The only lawful way to remove a tenant runs through the court.
Why Does Georgia’s Eviction Process Matter for Landlords?
For years I assumed the lease was the landlord’s strongest card. It isn’t. The order of notice, demand, filing, and service carries more weight in court than any clause you signed in a kitchen a year back.
A few years back I sat with a widow in Snellville who’d been quietly covering two mortgages for almost a year. She kept her late husband’s first house as a rental. The tenant stopped paying the spring after the funeral, and she never filed, because a neighbor told her the courts were backed up. Her garage was still full of his fishing gear when we bought it. Calls like hers are common across the metro, and they are part of why we buy houses in Snellville and the towns around it.
Rent income here isn’t climbing fast enough to soak up that kind of loss. Statewide median rent slipped about 1.5 percent year over year to roughly $1,797 a month in May, on Realtor.com figures, with rental stock up sharply. A vacancy today competes against more listings than it did two years back.
Landlords who file fast protect more than rent. They protect the house. Each extra month a nonpaying tenant stays, the odds of damage climb. When it does, the guide for Augusta landlords managing tenant-caused property damage walks through documenting it and what you can recover.
Some owners hit a point where the eviction fight isn’t worth it. Selling a tenant-occupied or recently vacated rental as-is to a local buyer like Prime Cash Home Buyers can end the bleeding in a couple of weeks instead of a couple of quarters.
What Are Valid Reasons to Evict a Tenant in Georgia?
Landlords often read a lease breach as an automatic ticket to court. Judges read it more narrowly. The breach has to be real, documented, and not something you waived yourself.
Nonpayment of rent drives most filings here, and holdover tenancy is the second big one. The lease term ended, the tenant stayed, and the tenancy turned into sufferance. Illegal activity in the unit counts, and so does subleasing you didn’t approve, extra occupants, or pets the lease bans.
Month-to-month arrangements work differently. Under O.C.G.A. 44-7-7, a landlord has to give 60 days’ written notice to end a tenancy at will. A tenant only owes 30. That notice ends the tenancy. It doesn’t by itself let you file, and you still have to demand possession after.
Three defenses catch landlords flat-footed. Retaliation is barred under O.C.G.A. 44-7-24, and a tenant who called code enforcement about a broken furnace has a real argument if you move within three months of that call. The same statute cuts your way too: a landlord isn’t liable for retaliation when the tenant was already delinquent in rent at the time the notice went out or the case was filed. Waiver is the second. Take rent after the demand while you know about the default, and you may have given up the right to end the lease for that breach. The third is tender. On a nonpayment case, the tenant can pay everything owed plus filing costs within seven days of service and stop the eviction cold, though that card only works once every twelve months.
Cases collapse at the hearing for dull reasons more often than dramatic ones. A landlord accepted a partial payment as a goodwill gesture and never documented what it was for. I’ve seen that kill more cases than any lease clause. Georgia Legal Aid publishes the tenant side of that argument. It’s worth reading before you file.
What Court Documents Do You Need to Evict a Tenant in Georgia?
None of that reasoning matters until the paperwork lands right. The dispossessory affidavit is the centerpiece. The owner or a qualified agent swears it under oath. It names each tenant, the address, the reason for the eviction, and the exact rent demanded if you want a money judgment.
Bring the rest of the file with you:
- A copy of the lease or rental agreement
- A payment ledger showing what came in and when
- Any written notice to vacate or notice to quit you served
The court issues the summons, and the sheriff, constable, or approved server handles delivery. Tenants reply on an answer form, and many counties take it in person, by mail, or by fax. Athens-Clarke County wants it in hand by 5:00 p.m. on the seventh day after service, then sets a hearing within 14 days of the service date when an answer comes in.
Two more documents close out the file. A request for default and writ of possession goes in when no answer arrives. The writ is the order that lets the sheriff put the tenant and their things out.
Several counties now require e-filing on each eviction case, Clayton among them, so what you upload has to be clean and complete. A misspelled tenant name or the wrong unit number gets a case tossed, and you refile from zero.
How Do You Evict a Tenant in Georgia Step by Step?
“Can’t I just change the locks while they’re at work?” I get asked that maybe once a month, and the answer stays no. Georgia law only allows removal through the court.
You handle the notice first, which means the three-business-day pay-or-vacate notice on a nonpayment case and a demand for possession on everything else. Step two is filing the affidavit in magistrate court with the fee. Third comes service, and that piece trips people up more than any other.
Personal service on the tenant gets tried first. If the server can’t reach them, serving any resident of suitable age at the house works. When neither works, the summons gets tacked to the door and a copy mailed that same day to the tenant’s last known address.
Fourth, the seven-day answer window runs. Those seven days include weekends and holidays, but when the seventh lands on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, the tenant gets until the next business day. An oral answer counts in Georgia, and the clerk writes its substance right on the affidavit.
Fifth, you either get a default or a trial. Show up to that trial with receipts, photos, the ledger, and witnesses. A landlord who doesn’t appear gets the case tossed for want of prosecution. Sixth, judgment enters, the writ issues, and the sheriff or marshal sets the removal date.
One pattern I keep seeing. Landlords who hire a lawyer for the hearing win cleaner judgments than those who wing it. That goes double when the tenant raises habitability defenses.
How Long Does an Eviction Take in Georgia?
Misjudge the eviction timeline and you’ll price a vacancy for June that doesn’t open until September. That throws off every number you ran.
Uncontested cases move fast. Notice, service, the answer window, a default judgment, and the writ of possession take effect seven days after judgment under O.C.G.A. 44-7-55. From the first notice to a writ-eligible date, a clean case runs two to three weeks once you count court calendars.
Here are the clocks that actually govern the case.
| Stage | The clock | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Pay-or-vacate notice, nonpayment | 3 business days | O.C.G.A. 44-7-50(c), leases since July 2024 |
| Demand for possession, other grounds | No waiting period | Spoken or written, then you can file |
| Answer | 7 days from service | Filed, and you get a hearing date. |
| No answer | The same 7 days run out. | The landlord asks for a default and a writ. |
| The writ takes effect. | 7 days after judgment | O.C.G.A. 44-7-55 |
| Tenant appeal | 7 days from the order | Past-due rent goes into the court registry |
| Apply for execution. | 30 days from issuance | Or file an affidavit showing good cause. |
| Sheriff can’t execute | 14 days from your request | You may hire an off-duty certified officer. |
Contested cases stretch. An answer triggers a hearing, and evidence gets weighed. A tenant who loses can appeal within seven days of the order under O.C.G.A. 44-7-56. On appeal the tenant has to pay past-due rent into the court registry and keep paying monthly rent to stay.
Execution has its own clocks. Under O.C.G.A. 44-7-55, you have to apply for execution of the writ within 30 days of issuance, unless you file an affidavit showing good cause for the delay. If the sheriff, deputy, constable, or marshal can’t execute within 14 days of your request, you may hire an off-duty certified officer at your own cost.
For comparison, Georgia homes took a median of 59 days to sell in July, per Redfin. A clean eviction finishes well before a listing would. Selling with the tenant still in place is the other road, and we lay that out in selling a house with tenants in Augusta, GA.
How Much Does an Eviction Cost in Georgia?
The court costs are pocket change. The vacancy is what breaks small landlords.
Clayton County charges $50 to file a dispossessory against one defendant plus a $25 service fee per case. Athens-Clarke charges $79 for one defendant. Fees differ county to county, so your magistrate clerk’s office can give you the current figure for yours.
Legal fees on a contested eviction run into four figures in metro Atlanta. Add lost rent for each month the tenant stayed, then turnover costs: paint, flooring, locks, cleaning, and maybe an appliance. That’s the real bill.
A money judgment feels like a win in the moment. Collecting it from a tenant with no wages to garnish is an entirely different job. Many landlords never see a dollar.
Then there’s the equity sitting under all of it. Fulton County’s median sale price hit $477,300 in August, up 3.9 percent from a year earlier, with 5.7 months of supply on hand, per FMLS figures. An owner sitting on six figures of equity and a nonpaying tenant sometimes does better selling the rental outright than grinding through court and a rehab. We handle those situations regularly at our company that buys homes in Georgia, including houses still occupied.
How Do You Evict a Squatter in Georgia?
A neighbor calls about lights on in a house you thought was empty. Working out who is actually living there turns into its own problem.
Georgia changed this with House Bill 1017, the Georgia Squatter Reform Act. It created the misdemeanor offense of unlawful squatting and gave law enforcement the power to issue citations. A cited person has three business days to produce a signed lease, payment records, or other proof they’re allowed to be there. Without it, they face arrest, a fine of up to $1,000, up to 12 months in jail, or some mix.
As the owner, you also get a civil fast track. You file a sworn property affidavit stating that you own the place and that the person there has no lease and no legal right to be. Once served, the occupant has three business days to file a counteraffidavit. No counteraffidavit, and a sheriff, deputy, or constable can turn them out. File one, and the matter goes to a non-jury hearing within seven days.
This track only applies to intruders with no tenancy. If any landlord and tenant setup exists, even a handshake one, you’re back to the court process.
A man called on a Wednesday from Kennesaw with a job transfer and five weeks to be out of state. His former tenant’s cousin had moved into the basement, left a dirt bike in pieces in the garage, and wouldn’t produce a lease. He didn’t have time for a hearing calendar, and that’s often when a seller moves fast. He sold the house and flew out on schedule.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Fast Can a Landlord Get a Tenant Out in Georgia?
Faster than most states, though the honest answer turns on whether the tenant responds. An uncontested nonpayment case can move from the three-day notice to an enforceable writ in two to three weeks. Add an answer, a hearing, or an appeal, and plan on a month or more.
Can You Be Evicted in Georgia Without a Court Hearing?
You can lose the case without a hearing, but you can’t be removed without a court order. If a tenant never answers in the window, the landlord can take a default judgment, and the court can issue the writ with no one testifying. A landlord who skips court entirely and locks you out is breaking the law.
Do You Still Owe Rent After Being Evicted in Georgia?
Yes. A judgment can include past-due rent, late fees the lease allows, and court costs, and that money judgment survives the move-out. Landlords can chase it the same way they would any other judgment. The filing itself shows up in tenant screening reports for years. Getting the keys back and getting paid are two separate outcomes, and plenty of owners get the first without ever seeing the second.
Can You Sell a House in Georgia with a Tenant Still Living in It?
You can. The lease travels with the house, so a buyer takes title subject to whatever’s in place, month-to-month included. Retail buyers with a bank loan want the house empty and clean. That’s why occupied sales tend to go to cash buyers who are fine inheriting the tenancy, from metro Atlanta out to the cash home buyers in Augusta. If the tenant has stopped paying, that is a negotiating point, not a reason to walk. Around the Augusta market, which usually means the Columbia County suburbs, we buy houses in Evans, GA, in any condition.
What Does an Eviction Cost a Landlord in Georgia?
Filing fees in magistrate court run well under a couple hundred dollars, plus service costs and legal fees if you hire help. The real expense is everywhere else. Months of unpaid rent while the calendar moves, the turnover work on a unit nobody looked after, and the mortgage you covered the whole time. Owners who’ve been through it twice rarely call the court fee the painful part.
When the Math Stops Working
Some rentals are worth defending. You file, you win, you turn the unit, and the house goes back to earning. Others quietly turn into a second job you never applied for. An inherited house two hours away, a duplex with repairs stacking up, a rental tied to a divorce or estate with a deadline on it.
If you’ve run the numbers on another round of vacancy, repairs, and holding costs and the answer keeps coming back wrong, selling as-is is a fair exit. We buy Georgia houses in any condition, occupied or vacant, with no repairs, no cleanout, and no agent commissions. We can close on a date that works around your court calendar rather than against it.
To find out what that looks like for your property, reach out to Prime Cash Home Buyers for a no-obligation cash offer and a straight answer about your options. There’s no pressure to accept, and no cost to ask.
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